Report: September 11 mastermind murdered Daniel Pearl

A recently completed report regarding the murder of Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl reveals that September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed personally executed Pearl in Pakistan nine years ago, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The former al-Qaeda senior official said in a closed military hearing in 2007 that he personally murdered the Wall Street Journal reporter, but US authorities questioned his credibility over lack of evidence and as he was known to claim responsibility for many killings.

The new report, which analyzed the video documenting Pearl's murder, shows that the hand of the unseen man who killed Pearl is that of Mohammed, who is currently being kept at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report also indicates that Mohammed told the FBI that a senior al-Qaeda operative advised him to take control of Pearl from his original kidnappers.

The special report was prepared by faculty members and students at Georgetown University using advanced technological means.

Three-minute video documented Pearl's murder (Photo: AP)

Pearl was the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief. He was abducted while performing research in Karachi, Pakistan and was executed on February 1, 2002.

The journalist was duped into thinking that he was heading to an interview with a radical Pakistani cleric when he was seized by a group of militants organized by Omar Sheik, a British-educated Pakistani, who is in prison for Pearl's kidnapping and murder, as are three accomplices.

Pearl's kidnappers accused him of spying for the CIA and the Mossad. A three-minute videotape transferred to the US a month later documented the murder.

Mohammed is currently awaiting his trial after previously confessing to planning the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

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